how lucky we are that, even crushed under the weight of sadness & grief, we are capable of giving love and joy to other people, and they are often more than happy to give some back.
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there’s two of you now, maybe you’ve got the security clearance to get the van ending?
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a silly thing involving my Gregory from Permission Slip and @sleepyjuniper ‘s Gregory from her fic Visions (or Lack Thereof)! If you ain’t read it yet, go do that!
no one ever, ever let me draw a vending machine in a comic again
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i was thinking more about characters Performing Gender, but not necessarily Transgressing Gender. I wound up focusing on Ned and Sansa bc I feel like I understand them the most but-
Sansa as a hostage is imo the most obvious (bc it’s so well done) moment of someone clearly Performing Gender but not being transgressive in that performance. Which isn’t to say it’s not a complicated performance; it’s a fine line Sansa walks between weaponizing her gender to protect herself without seeming too fake. She’s trying to placate the Lannisters by playing the perfect, dedicated, air headed betrothed because it’s the only defense she has - if she outwardly rebels, she will be punished in a likely violent and/or sexual way (which isn’t even conjecture - when she says “or maybe he’ll give me yours” Joffrey has her struck with an armored hand). She’s not quite successful in being convincing but that’s because it’s a rather extreme situation; despite no one believing her, she does make herself seem meek and stupid enough that no one suspects she’s plotting to escape with Dontos until she’s well away from KL. The fact that she even has Dontos to confide in is because of Sansa’s relationship with gender! When she saves him, she covers her rebellious slip by playing up Joffrey’s intelligence & his role as King; she reaches for “tools” of her gender AND of ~proper manhood~ to save a life and herself from another beating. Her retreats into the godswood and silence are very much Sansa attempting to recharge from these draining interactions, the same way a knight would need to stop and eat and rest after a fight. She is fighting, constantly, by forcing herself to stay within the narrow confines of a specific type of gender performance as a way of shielding herself from harm.
Ned yelling at Cat is another big one, and I’ve seen the scene referred to as Ned using his patriarchal power to scare Cat, which is a great description. It feels like a Performance because Ned is putting on this terrifying Lord Stark mask in an attempt to get Catelyn to stop asking about Jon (and Lyanna). This is not how he usually acts with those he loves! When Ned is with His People, he is welcoming of questions, curiosity, emotion, even transgressive thought (to a point! the idea that Ned is a feminist because he lets Arya learn to fight is Not accurate but you can’t deny he allows significantly more flexibility wrt gender expression than most of the fathers we meet in this series. the bar is in hell tho). Yet when Cat asks him about Jon’s mother, Ned scares her so well she stops asking & still remembers the moment bitterly over a decade later. And if that snippet we see through Bran’s eyes of Ned praying that Cat will forgive him does come after she asks (like it’s suspected), it’s clear not only that this is a performance he’s putting on & weaponizing against Cat, it’s one he does not like using as a weapon against someone he is close to. After using the power his gender gives him to cause harm, he retreats to the godswood and silence to pray and rest, much like Sansa. A spiritual cleanse, the way a soldier may pray after battle, to reset and reconnect Being A Proper Man to Being A Kind Man.
I think there’s something interesting in that two of the characters most widely defined by how well they adhere to Westerosi gender norms both dislike feeling like they had to weaponize their gender. They are exhausted by the performance, because it’s a performance. This isn’t Sansa getting excited over tourneys, or Ned teaching his sons to fight; it’s toxic masculinity, it’s structural misogyny. It’s something they’re good at, excel at, and connected to something they enjoy but when it’s paired with violence, whether done by Ned or done to Sansa, it crosses over in their minds from an innate part of themselves (The Gender) to a performance necessary due to survival (The Gender Role). And that after these performances, both retreat to nature & god as a way of resting and cleansing from the experience.
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Feel free to ignore you've probably got a lot going on right now, but considering you know a lot about DOTC and Clear sky, I had a question...
We know that he's a terrible, misogynistic, woman beating and war mongering lunatic who was excused of all his actions because his equally misogynistic brother said " But-But he's nice! Deep down! This isn't the real him! "
But! In a world where the Hunters could write such a character, what do you think Clear Sky would look like as an actual sympathetic villain?
Idk if that makes sense, but what I've thought of doing is taking purely cannon Clear Sky and attempting to change him enough that he's still an antagonist, but not too far where only Reddit defends him.
I don't think he works as a sympathetic villain, on any level, ever. I think you're making a huge mistake to even try, and I have never seen an AU where it was done well nor am I interested in entertaining the thought.
Characters. Are. Tools. They exist to tell a story. The story that people tell me, by obsessing over some alternate universe where he was "ACTUALLY sympathetic and had a REAL redemption arc," is that they're not fucking interested in his dozens of victims. Nor do they actually care about the abusive impact he had on the minds and feelings of his family. They're JUST interested in Clear Sky himself.
Just like the Erins. Everything that happens in DOTC revolves around him. Everything. All his wives die so he can be sad about it. His brother defends all of his actions and BEGS you to sympathize with his pain so he can be 'redeemable.' One Eye comes out of nowhere so that there can be an example of "real" evil to contrast Clear Sky so he's less bad in hindsight.
The first three books of DOTC are bad, but the last three are fucking insufferable because SUDDENLY all that Gray Wing apologia pays off, and they take their main villain and throw him out a window. You CAN'T have "redeemable" Clear Sky and the plot of DOTC without dragging in someone else to drive the conflict, to BE the bigger threat to "unite" against. Slash and One Eye have to be conjured up out of thin air so Clear Sky can WHINE about how people only suck his toes instead of deepthroat them after he killed all their friends.
And yet, in spite of this absolute failure of an attempt, we continue to see this bullshit "redemption" be a mistake because Clear Sky is a fantastic villain, with major antagonist roles in nearly EVERY bit of follow-up material for DOTC that came after.
He's the most consistent monster in all of Warriors.
He's a fragile, egotistical, self-absorbed megalomaniac who ALWAYS sees himself as the victim, REFUSING to self-reflect and blaming everything else for all of his terrible choices. He will USE your love of him against you like it's a chain through your nose, step out of line and he will yank you into place with guilt trips, manipulation, public shaming, and violence.
He's a child abuser. He's a tyrant. He abandons the sick and disabled as soon as they're of no use to him, with grand speeches about "illness" and "weakness." He's a murderer who stands above the shredded corpse of his victim and bellows, "I'M NOT GREEDY! I'M JUST STRONG!"
And you'd write a "good" redemption arc for this, why?
Why are people so chronically unable to accept that there are LOTS of people like him, and you can't save your abuser? Why don't you ask yourselves why you're not interested in exploring Thunder, or Petal, or Gray Wing, and how his toxic influence impacts them? Why does the sympathy fall on Clear Sky? What about the DOZENS of victims who are dead by Book 3, and how THEY could have been saved?
Why ruin a perfectly good villain?
What's behind this trend where a billion people say to me, "Yes Clear Sky is a walking cavalcade of fucked up abuse apologia, and an incredibly realistic depiction of an abuser, but how would you change this while keeping it all the same?"
I wouldn't. You can't. It wouldn't be the same story, or it wouldn't be the same character. Never seen it done well, and I have seen it a lot. So I don't entertain this deeply frustrating "Well What If Clear Sky But Nice" impulse.
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Hmm... Akane witch design courtesy of Umineko brainrot anyone? 😳
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ok so imagine this. @hollewdz made a wonderful post about my adventures with superman where clark gets into kryptonite and it shrinks him. i have been rotating that post in my brain for the past 6 hours. me and my friend (@beepbopitsgt) have since been brainstorming!!! there are many types of canon kryptonite; pink, green, gold, black, the works. well i wanted to make a kryptonite that would amplify superman/kryptonians so much they would physically grow when in contact with it. i call it purple kryptonite because dr ivo's parasite suit (in the show) was purple and he grew when in contact with energy and it was. purple. thats crazy anyway here's clark in the middle of being in contact with the purple kryptonite and lois trying to calm him down
edit: sorry i know the arm is weird i was tired 😓😓i will fix when i get home from school i
edit 2: not fixing it ia m going to take a nap enjoy the wonky
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read your hucow mc and epel and loved it!!!! but hear me out....hucow mc and bull epel...im obsessed with all the epel crumbs you leave!!
OMG OMG bull!Epel who is mistaken as a female at first glance, so he's put in your pen. But then it becomes clear he isn't when the handlers find him railing you. <3 and it's already too late to separate the two of you because the both of you have gone so many rounds already and he's came inside each time. It will not be a surprise to anyone if and when you eventually fall pregnant. Epel refuses to be taken away from you once he knows you're pregnant, so the handlers have no choice but to let the two of you stay together in a space separate from the other hucows and bulls.
Aaaaa and maybe Epel's really protective and territorial over you, so if anyone tries to get near you (especially when you're pregnant) he gets really defensive!!!! <3 and he has to be the one to milk you and bring your meals and care for you!! He's so ready to start a fight if anyone gets too close for comfort.
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C-CAN YOU HEAR THE CIRCUS COMING?!?
CAN YOU? CAN YOU??
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i saw this review a bit ago and i've been thinking about it a lot. i want to talk about it. i love hilton als, good god (although how could you hate any character more than oliver? i suppose it's the reality of people like farleigh).
"...while leading a nearly completely fictive life and pretending said gallery isn't paying them to be black. or some branch of show business. authenticity is their enemy, and declaiming 'whiteness'--usually in the press--covets it, reveres it. emotional exhibitionism is all, but not truth--if they could find it." this is such a poignant explanation of what it means to be colored and to exploit said color. declaiming whiteness covets authenticity. emotional exhibitionism is all, but not truth. GOD.
this concept of what it means to utilize your marginalization--to externalize it, to remove yourself from it only until it's useful, to disconnect so ardently from that which is a part of you. it's something i've thought about a lot. als' specific words get me, "the piddling career." because it is piddling, isn't it? god, is it meaningless and pathetic. it makes me think of archie's quote, "i understand this sort of peddling you're doing, trying to catch up to these people."
when i look at farleigh, i see him the same way i see the other boys at school that try so hard to obey whiteness and everything that comes with it. i see him the say way i see my younger self, surrounded by invisible strings that i was terrified of tripping into. running away from something so uncomfortable that you'll use any self-contained currency you own. unsure of when to use your race for the sake of social credit, or when to attempt some odd form of camouflage that never really works. and there's other things that follow or maybe prelude that; your body, your name, the fabric of what makes you an individual. it's heartbreaking and terrifying all the same.
i guess farleigh is my own form of escapism, in the way that i can imagine whatever future i'd like for him. i can imagine that he learns to love, deeply and entirely, what it means to be hurt and heal from it. maybe i kind of do resent part of this fandom for unknowingly attacking my hopeful imagination. whether they hate the character or whether they create their own imaginative realities of farleigh that don't really fit into mine. i have an unhealthy attachment to this character, basically. chatterboxing, who's abt to step into the ring w me?
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vote for sol in the @doomed-bythe-narrative showdown
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Just had a wild dream. I was at RTX and went to the DnDads event, but it wasn’t a live show, they showed a whole Dungeons and Daddies animated movie. I just watched Across the Spiderverse last night, which has bled into my brain forever, so it had all that good trippy dimension stuff and the teens were superheroes (sorta. Normal slipped into a dimension where they were superheroes and was trying to fix it but doing a bad job) and of course it had the gorgeous animation style of Spiderverse. Anyways. All this to say, I might need to make a superhero AU now
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also I had a breakthrough today that I had in fact overthought a Specific Problem to Death and that I had created a monster in my own mind and that’s why it felt like I was being eaten alive every time I tried to solve it.
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ngl, I want the mug, I could drink pussy juice from it, think about it
plus, heat-activated
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even other aros stop making my posts about how much you enjoy and appreciate shipping challenge.
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as much as im celebrating the Full Realization that yes, qbbh is recovering rn (he's on such an upswing!!), i am fully expecting there to be a downswing, and im expecting it to hit HARD.
the other day bbh made a very interesting comment- paraphrased: "it's easier when you have no attachments."
in context, he was talking about the bagi-cellbit situation and the hardship of attachments starting to conflict because of gaining so many of them, and trying to figure out what to do about cellbit (especially in regards to the feds and the eggs)
but it just. it Felt a Little Off. like maybe. foreshadowing. because he has so, so many attachments, and they keep causing him pain. how long has it been since he's last seen skeppy. how long has it been since he's seen the eggs. forever. now cellbit... qbbh is full of So Much Love and it keeps hurting him and, while he has recently swung away from hurting himself because his loved ones would be upset by it, what if he just... swung a little too far. and has a brief period of trying to drop those attachments entirely
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